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Three friends have followed their entrepreneurial dream to build a five-star hotel in Liepaja, a seaside city in Latvia. After a few early profitable years, the hotel is struggling, due to the massive downturn in the Latvian economy as a result of the European Union financial crisis and slow recovery. The hotel has declined from generating an annual profit to now making a loss or barely breaking even. On several occasions, the co-owners have considered selling up while they can still break even. With the European Union showing signs of recovery, business confidence is returning and the future is starting to look up. The co-owners must decide whether to put all their struggles behind them, retain the ownership of the hotel and look forward to the potential days of profit that lie ahead. Alternatively, they can move in an almost opposite direction, by selling up and moving on. What strategic direction will produce a successful outcome?

Stephen Grainger is affiliated with Edith Cowan University.

learning objective:

This case is ideal for courses in the fields of international business, international management, international marketing, strategic management and any business studies that address developing international operations, including in former Soviet economies. The case can be used as follows:As a major written assignment in the second half of a unit.As a group discussion workshop conducted in a 90-minute class.As a homework exercise with students returning to class to discuss their findings and/or discuss and compare their strategies.As a major written or presentation assignment to challenge teams to formulate strategy, develop solutions and investigate what further information they need to make a correct strategic decision. Teams may report their answers back to class through discussion or in a presentation or questioning format to encourage broader comparison.

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The human resources department at China Sunwah Bank had to decide on 22 new appointments - only 12 of which were officially advertised - to Sunwah Bank's 28 branches. More than 4,000 applications had been received and the final list of candidates based on merit had been reduced to 48. The department members had spent many hours reading applications and conducting interviews; however, some members had been coping with specific endorsements for certain applicants from government officials, friends, former teachers and bank managers in a system known as "guanxi," which was based on a reciprocal exchange of favours that bound individuals together. The challenge was how to choose the most qualified and talented recruits for the new positions at Sunwah Bank, keeping in mind the guanxi-based requests for favours from important stakeholders and friends - including some who had granted significant favours to Sunwah Bank executives in the past. The choice would require sensitivity and cultural awareness. Who would the department hire and why?

learning objective:

Students engaging with this case will be required to Identify, analyze and understand the importance of guanxi in recruitment processes at Chinese banks.Identify and develop strategies to promote cultural harmony and productivity in national banks in China.Develop management skills to satisfy the culturally sensitive Chinese business culture.Show sensitivity and confidence in developing strategies and arguments to support recruitments and appointments in non-Western cultures.

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Martin Fassler's dynamic entrepreneurial and innovative skills were evident when he saw an opportunity in the smoked marlin market and started his now-successful company, Fassler Gourmet (FG). After coping with the initial challenges that every new entrepreneur faces, he found success in supplying airlines flying out of Singapore, Bangkok and Seoul with original seafood dishes. Airline travel - and FG's revenues - were decimated by the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998, the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the global economic downturn in 2008. During these hard times, Fassler excelled in innovation and diversification and developed five distinct and growing markets for exotic seafood. Rather than fire employees during these crises, Fassler instead reduced their work hours and thus cultivated an extremely loyal workforce. FG now works with many wholesalers, exporters, re-sellers, hotels, airline caterers, restaurants, cafes and sandwich shops and has factory outlet and home-delivery customers. Martin Fassler, now in his fifties, has reached a critical moment in his business career. Should he continue to lead, innovate and diversify further or should he begin to reduce his involvement? Selling a share to a new partner, handing responsibilities to his younger managers or divesting himself of this successful company altogether are all options, but risk alienating his loyal workforce.

learning objective:

This case is ideal for use in the fields of international business, international human resource management, innovation, change management and entrepreneurship. Students will be required to:Identify and analyze excellence in innovation and diversification.Analyze and develop entrepreneurial options for success and choose appropriate business development strategies.Develop management skills that will aid in success as future international managers.Show confidence in developing strategies to promote employee loyalty and manage multicultural workforces.Analyze and develop successful options for succession.The case could be used as a major written assignment in the second half of a unit; a group discussion workshop conducted in class over a 90-minute period; or a homework exercise where students come to class to discuss their findings and/or discuss and compare their strategies.

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The Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), was under pressure to become a profit generating 5-star hotel due to the continued development of the Chinese market economy. As for many SOEs, the RDH was overstaffed, filled with archaic work practices, internal cliques, unsystematic production systems and a dysfunctional motivation system unrelated to performance. During modernization, a number of human resource management problems became increasingly evident; solving these problems had become a priority. In 2000, the RDH's provincial government and stakeholders made their first attempt at modernizing the hotel by hiring a globally renowned company to undertake the upgrade. The disastrous outcome caused the provincial government and stakeholders to lose heart, momentum and motivation until six years later. A new joint venture owner and the RDH board recovered enough confidence to attempt modernization for a second time. They contracted Premium Hotel Services (PHS) to undertake the second attempt at improving operations. The PHS found the quality of older employees, increasing turnover of new staff and policies emerging from the continuing evolution of the Chinese economy were now presenting problems never confronted before at the RDH. How could the stakeholders solve these problems and have the RDH emerge as an internationally recognized five star, commercially viable hotel?

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The Liang family, experienced family hoteliers in China, had to leave the mainland under the pressure of the forces of Chairman Mao and the CCP in 1949. They resettled in Taiwan, resumed their hospitality business and now, two generations later, have returned to Nanjing to find their family's old guest house has been allowed to run down and deteriorate as a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SoE). They repurchase the old guest house with the intention to redevelop. How will they deal with this privatization and the inevitable bureaucracy of purchasing, demolition and rebuilding the old guest house? How will they convert the existing SoE human resources (trained under planned economy conditions) into dynamic employees operating in the market economy while being sensitive to the cultural characteristics and challenges of this mainland Chinese workplace? With more than 6,000 Chinese SoEs still being targeted for privatization, this case is very relevant and provides a real world opportunity for students to exercise their research, analytical, international management, entrepreneurial and cross-cultural management skills.<br><br> This case is best used in a unit after the topics of international human resource management, culture and international management have been covered. Such positions may include 1) as a closing case in an international management unit of study 2) as a human resource management case in an international human resource management or international management unit of study 3) as a challenge in an entrepreneurial unit of study or 4) as a mid-unit or closing case in a strategic management unit of study.

learning objective:

Students should be encouraged through research to prepare a method to successfully manage the situation sensitively and make effective use of all the resources at the organization's exposure to arrive at a win-win outcome for all involved. Students will need: quality research skills to determine what cultural characteristics are important in the case; to decide how best this privatization can be carried out; to decide how a cultural collision of Chinese and Western systems can be avoided; to develop methods to manage the considerable cultural HR challenges with sensitivity; to recognize how the positive idiosyncrasies of both the target and takeover workforce organizational cultures can be used to enhance the outcome of the takeover.

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A business professor has just arrived in China with a group of students on a study tour, when one of the members of the group comes down with the H1N1 virus. The entire group is either hospitalized or quarantined. The professor, who is also the tour director, must determine how to deal with the crisis, and quickly. This case is designed for use in a crises management course, or in an early class in an international management course to illustrate the sort of differences one may confront in the international environment.

learning objective:

This case is designed for use in a crisis management course or module, or in an early class in an international management course to illustrate the sort of differences one may confront in the international environment.

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The case looks at the takeover of the Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH), a state owned enterprise in south-west China, by global hotelier Hotel International (HI) and discusses the cultural collision and organizational adoptions resulting from the intersections of two significantly different business cultures. Specifically in this case, the focus is on the challenge involved with downsizing, redundancy, communication, cultural sensitivity, strategic planning and in developing strategy. In south-west China in 2002, the RDH business environment was just emerging from the shadow of the planned economy and had retained its guanxi-based organizational culture. At RDH, relationship development and the exchange of favors were still important and occurring on a daily basis and there was little system or efficiency in the hotel's domestic management style and processes. In comparison, Hotel International had a wealth of international experience in providing accommodation, marketing and professional management in servicing the needs of a global market steeped in corporate governance. At the commencement of the management contract there was a deep division separating the organizational cultures of RHD and HI.

learning objective:

The case is ideal for use in the fields of international management, international business, Asian management studies and international human resource management. It can ideally be used as a major written assignment (and/or presentation) for the individual or alternatively as a group assignment for two or three members preferably from different cultural backgrounds. There are several questions provided in the teaching note designed to promote student discussion and the creation of solutions to the difficulties and problems encountered in this case. There are challenges for those reading the case that will enhance their preparation for future management roles in developing economies, especially in relation to planning, strategy, negotiation, motivation, communication, research, cultural sensitivity and a variety of other human resource issues that an international manager encounters. With mergers, takeovers, and joint-ventures occurring in many evolving economies, this case encourages students to become more globally focused and aware of the contrasting idiosyncrasies of international and domestic market economies and the challenges encountered in these types of situations. This real world international management scenario is designed to stimulate discussion and encourage the creation of business solutions, written assessments and responses from academics and students.

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